02_07 General Surgery Dysphagia

General Surgery: Dysphagia
Session Overview
Description
This session outlines important principles in the definition, causes, assessment and investigation of dysphagia, a significant symptom which warrants urgent evaluation.

Learning Objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Explain normal swallowing
• Define dysphagia and describe causes of dysphagia
• Take an accurate history from and examine someone presenting with dysphagia
• Describe the investigation of dysphagia

Dysphagia is a common symptom encountered in primary and secondary care.

Difficulty swallowing requires urgent investigation to rule out an underlying diagnosis of malignancy. After malignancy has been excluded benign diagnoses can be explored.

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Explain normal swallowing
• Define dysphagia and describe causes of dysphagia
• Take an accurate history from and examine someone presenting with dysphagia
• Describe the investigation of dysphagia